Pearl Harbor Veterans Think Of Old, New Crisis

FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. — Forty-nine years ago, they played their roles when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor: a GI, an air-traffic controller, a navigator, a pilot, an anti-aircraft officer.

When South Florida members of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association gather, talk usually turns to what they were doing 49 years ago Friday, on Dec. 7, 1941. Friday members of the chapter will gather at 1 p.m. at Port Everglades to commemorate the 2,341 Americans killed in the attack. The ceremony will be at Berth 19, alongside the missile cruiser USS Yorktown.

But this year, the Persian Gulf crisis inevitably slips into the veterans' remembrances.

"There's an old cliche that says history repeats itself," said retired Army Lt. Col. Joseph Cybulski.

At Pearl Harbor, "Cy" was a radio operator and air-traffic controller at Hickam Field. He and compatriots bore the wrath of a Japanese dictator bent on expanding his territory and grabbing oil fields. These days, the dictator is an Iraqi who wants to grab land and oil.